


Inner Demon

by Grain_Crain



Series: Tumblr Asks [3]
Category: Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six (Video Games)
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Horror, Introspection, Is this even horror though?, M/M, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-12
Updated: 2018-12-12
Packaged: 2019-09-16 23:41:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16963686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Grain_Crain/pseuds/Grain_Crain
Summary: Lion has a nightmare and sees a friendly face by campfire.





	Inner Demon

**Author's Note:**

> This is meant to be a response of an ask that I got on [my tumblr](https://grain-crain-drain.tumblr.com/post/181047154368/36-with-doclion-doc-comforting-lion) I reblogged an [angst otp prompt](https://wonder7pickle.tumblr.com/post/169123215826/45-otp-angst-prompts)
> 
> Basically an anon asked me to write on "Another nightmare?" with DocLion ship where Doc comforts Lion. Soooo I went overboard with Lion's nightmare because why not? :D
> 
> Thank you so much [kiki the angel](http://r6shippingdelivery.tumblr.com/) for the proofread and giving me an idea to add more... horror, if you'd call it.

Rise, fall, rise and then fall again. With his eyes shut tight, Olivier wonders if he is trapped in a timelapse where day and night change within a blink of a second. He saw similar scenes during his carefree nightlife; every bits of neon speckles permeated through his tight shut eyelids while being under the influence of alcohol or other substance. Perhaps he should reach deeper into the innocent times when he chased after sun rays scattered by rustles of tree leaves. Those fascinating gems of nature shone across the pavement of a park that his family used to stroll on Sunday morning after church. He often ran too deep into the forest but didn’t mind stumbling upon unpolished pathways. Seeing the familiar greenery puts his mind at ease and allows him to mindlessly wander off into wherever he wants to go. Directionless without any responsibility. What wouldn’t he do for this tranquility. He could get lost in this scent of soggy wood for a while and forget about everything. Until a tinge of burn jabs his nose.

It was a common sight to see casual campfires for those children scouts, but then who would be making fires in such dense area? He stumbles around cautiously and notices a large figure hunched over the source of flickering light. It’s too hard to identify who this person could be because almost half of their body is hidden in high-contrasting shadow where the flame can’t reach.

“Excusez-moi.” Olivier approaches closer, unafraid but puts his guard up just in case. Rather than responding, the stranger seems to be occupied with throwing a heap of sticks into the fire. Olivier assumes that they are too busy and determined to keep the flame alive.

“Hello?” He tries to grab their attention again and reaches out to place a hand on their shoulder. Within a spur of motion, the figure jolts and snaps their neck in three-sixty. Olivier could barely gasp at their glowing orange iris before his whole body is forcefully whirled forward. Struggle is futile. No matter how much brute force he put in, his nose remains dangerously close to the roaring inferno that grew taller within a second.

“Hot, isn’t it?” A cold sweat trickles upon hearing the stranger’s voice. His own voice. Even though Olivier can’t see the face of the supposed imposter, he can imagine the arrogant smile that he sometimes see in the mirror.

“What’s going on?” Olivier meant to growl but fearful croak comes out instead.

“Don’t be afraid.” The doppelganger cooes and throws another stick in. “I’m just trying to keep it warm. Here, help me out.”

“Like hell I would-” Another attempt to break free is immediately shut down. This imposter somehow outpowers the original in every level and its gripping tighter on his neck.

“Come on. I will let you go if you throw this one in there.” This time Olivier has to comply or else he would be short out of breath. Reluctantly, he picks up the thinnest one out of the pile and push it in. He expected a crackle but hears a high-pitched shriek.

“Too small. Grab bigger one.” Olivier obeys and tries again with thicker branch. He hopes to hear nothing but this time it’s a full-blown scream of a human man. Something that he might have heard from his recent terrorist encounter.

“No, that’s not it. Keep going.” Another one thrown in and similar scream comes out of the burning piece. Olivier had heard that one before quite a while ago.

“More.” More sticks light up and let out a collection of screeches. Most of them are anguished pleads and regret, a desperate prayers sought out to their families and loved ones. One strikes Olivier’s forgotten memory. That one who kept asking _why_ they had suffer. _Why_ they were abandoned, left to die in middle of West Africa and _why_ they couldn’t return to their homeland of France. _Why_ their bones had to be buried in the jungle without a proper burial. He is urged to grab another but holds it tighter. Upon feeling the texture of the pile wood, Olivier digs his nails into tiny bumps and a pair of gouged holes. Fingertips slide down to sense thin splinters left and right and terrible realisation dawns upon him. Whatever he’s been holding and burning were miniature version of mummified corpses that appear too real to be mere figurines or totems.

“Stop! Stop it! NO!” With his breath ragged and voice growing thinner, Olivier realises his arms don’t have the same amount of muscle that he had before being trapped by his mirror-image.

“Go on. I want this place ablaze.” The imposter still remains large, imposing and most of all, adult. It yanks the original’s arm into the fire, then laughs at the sound of sizzling flesh and smaller frame writhing in tearful agony. Skin melts off of his hand in a manner that wax would and slowly coagulates into a bulging lump.

“What’s that?!”

“You will see.” It replies and continues to push Olivier into the fire, causing him to lose more skin until bones bare out. The lump feed off from dripping flesh and muscle, then eventually grows into a fetus.

“Alexis?” It’s not a guess. That’s the name he mutters in astonishment and apprehension.

“Step on it.”

“No. No fucking way.” Olivier shudders at the thought of his feet touching the flame and supple body crashing under his weight.

“You wanted it to be gone. Why hesitate now? Kill it. Eradicate it.” The other Olivier lifts up its smaller self like a rag-doll prisoner. “I can drop you in there but you still have a choice. Either you step on it or I help you to squash it with your own weight. Your ego is heavy enough to stomp on that _thing._ ”

“He is not a thing!” Olivier shouts back in a wail of a child, “He is my son! Our son!”

“Fuck that. It’s a hindrance to your future. How much money have you sent to that bitch and never heard anything from them?”

“She has her reasons. I don’t have the right to condemn her.” There is no lie in there. It’s the truth that Olivier had accepted when he came to repent his decisions.

“Then I must condemn you, you filth. Your self-righteousness disgusts me. A disgrace in God’s eye. If you value your child’s life, you should have valued your colleague’s.” This isn’t a doppelganger. It’s a demon that has been residing within Olivier for quite some time, a malice that couldn’t be exorcised no matter how many times he prayed restlessly. “Pitiful waste. No one is on your side. Not even your friend. Who knows he is talking to you out of pity?” There were times when Gilles flashed a grimace towards Olivier and this fucking demon decides to nitpick on such small details. “Tell me. Why do you even bother to live?”

“Because-” Olivier stutters as he stares at the demon. He takes a deep breath in and tries again. “It’s because-”

 

* * *

 

Then the scenery of darkness and fire cuts out. Simply gone as if a television screen has been turned off due to power outage. All he hears now is his jagged breath and rustles of another body next to him.

“Amour,” his lover turns the bed lamp on. “Are you alright?”

Olivier thinks about the answer but his damp shirt and parched lips distract him for a moment. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay.” He scoots closer to Gustave for an embrace but the uneasiness still stirs within him.

“Breath with me. Take it slow. In, out, in and out again.” Gustave instructs and Olivier follows. It’s a calming sight to watch their chests move in regular motions of rise and fall.

“Another nightmare?”

“I think so. I can’t exactly remember what.” Disorientation jumbles the subconscious memory, and yet there’s something that he manages to remember. “Why do I live?”

“Pardon?”

“It’s just- nothing. I guess I am talking to myself.” Olivier is quick to brush off the lingering question before it gives him another wave of anxiousness.

“I’m not a philosopher but I guess you are alive because you are born into this world.” Gustave holds the other man’s hands sticky with cold sweat and places them close to his heart. “I can go on about the whole biological process but that doesn’t seem like the answer that you are looking for.”

“What do you think I am looking for?” He may sound demanding but both of them are beyond the stage of misinterpreting each other. “Enlighten me, if you will.” Olivier has learned to tone down the brash attitude by adding a bit of courtesy that he consciously makes an effort to show.

“I think we should ask ‘how will we live?’ What can we do to make our lives better? And how can we help the others’?” Gustave pauses to comb slightly damp hair of his boyfriend. “I’ve been judging the way you lived previously, but I saw a change within you. Not many can accept their own folly, especially when they are the proud kind. So whenever you are doubtful, I want you to think about how you will live from now on.”

“What a liar. Who says that you aren’t a philosopher?” The tinge of warmth shared between them comforts Olivier, added with a sense of approval from someone who used to hate him with a passion. Although he still can’t remember the nightmare, it’s irrelevant right this moment when someone like Gustave is here to bring him back to the reality. The first person who he sought out for forgiveness has become the soulmate of his life, and that is more than enough reason to live on and amend his past wrongdoings.


End file.
